- Admin
- #1
As some of you will have been aware, Foxy and myself weren't present at the Golden Lion on Saturday.
Saturday’s game against Burnley marked the start of Kick It Out’s “One Game One
Community” weeks of action and to reinforce the message that Sheffield United welcomes football fans from all areas of Sheffield society and beyond, there were some very special visitors to Bramall Lane. Building on already strong links with the Chinese business world, Sheffield United, along with the City Council and both Sheffield Universities are supporting the Sheffield Chinese Entrepreneurs and Professionals Association (SCEPA) which aims to help Chinese students and business people integrate into Sheffield life as well as celebrating and promoting Chinese culture here in the UK.
As part of this, over 150 Chinese students were invited to Bramall Lane as guests of SCEPA and Sheffield United and to show that this is a club with roots very much in Sheffield, representatives from the Blades Independent Fans Forum (BIFF) were invited to become involved as ambassadors of the club to add to their experience. We assisted with the tours around the ground as well as answering the students’ many questions about our experiences of English football. Many were already aware of the club through our links in Chengdu and helped United celebrate Chengdu’s promotion back into the Chinese Super League.
Despite being vastly outnumbered and it being a complete change to our normal match day rituals (which usually involve being in the pub, not in our “smart-casual” wear!) the tours went without a hitch and eventually, all the students were escorted into the upper tier and seemed delighted by the six goals they witnessed. I may be biased, but their standing ovation seems to indicate that they particularly enjoyed our third!
We’d like to thank the club for the opportunity to get involved and we hope that the Chinese guests left with a positive impression of our friendly, family club.
Who are B.I.F.F.?
The Blades Independent Fans Forum was formed in August 2009 following a mixed fan experience during the Blades pre season tour to Hungary. The group's founder and Chairman Stuart Drew commented:
“Instead of venting my spleen, which seems the most popular way on the many football websites, Football Heaven etc., I decided to pose the question to Kevin McCabe during his first question and answer session held at SUFC in August 2009.
The question was: 'What was his perception of fan customer service following United away and especially abroad?'
His response was hopefully a good one where the fans felt there was always a Blades official (especially abroad) on hand to assist and resolve any issues. When I stated that in our case, this was not what we experienced, Kevin immediately promised to rectify this and after my question sent one of his Directors over to discuss further.
We had several more discussions and it became clear that the link between United and the fans maybe wasn’t as strong as was first thought.
With this in mind, I was asked if I could rectify this by forming a Fans Forum, I took up the challenge and pulled together a group of Blades from all walks of life who would be able to present to United Operations teams on a regular basis issues experienced by fans when following or dealing with United, whether it be a ticketing issue, catering, commercial or superstore. This is conducted in a structured and professional manner with minutes taken and agreed actions written. We do not cover on field or playing issues but everything else.
Going forward, I would like to reach a wider audience which is where S24SU.com comes in. Linz & Foxy have recently joined the Fans Forum and have expressed an interest in relaying certain key information from the meetings with United via this forum and this will be good for two reasons.
1) To enable members of S24SU.com to benefit from viewing dialogue between United and BIFF which may concern them as fans and
2) To enable members to inform us of any issues they may have we can take up with United on their behalf.
I welcome your thoughts, good or bad and hopefully BIFF and S24SU.com together, we can represent a larger proportion of our fan base and have a positive impact on the fan experience following United which we all know at times can involve more lows than highs!
Thanks, Stuart
Message from Linz & Foxy
Just to add a little to what Stuart's said. Quite often, we've read of fans' frustrations about a lack of clarity on certain issues coming out of the club. We've worked hard, in our unofficial capacity, to try and keep as many fans as possible in the loop with the information coming out of the club by publicising events such as the Q&A sessions and filling in the gaps the club, for some reason, seemed reluctant to fill.
This put our heads above the parapet, as it were, and brought you lot as forum members and us into the spotlight. We've always encouraged reasoned debate on here and it's paid dividends with regards to our reputation as a whole and we must thank you all for the that because, as a site, it now means that we all now have the opportunity to put our points forward and have them listened to in perhaps a clearer channel of communication than was available before as well as receive more insight into the club. You may have seen that Foxy was able to go to the press conference when Gary Speed was announced as manager. We hope that was just the start.
I just want to reassure all our members that we wear our badge as an "independent" forum with pride which means as far as the running of this place is concerned, it's business as usual. We don't have to look too far to see what disasters can happen when club officials start meddling with internet forums!
Nor do Foxy and I claim to speak for any of you. Every fan has a different opinion about certain aspects. However, as we do with the forum, we can provide a means to get the questions out there but unlike the forum, you just might receive a sensible answer
There may be a few new features and sections added to the forum make it easier for fans who perhaps aren't members to contact us and BIFF with their comments and also a return of the news sections so that everything is easy to find.
I hope this explains a little of why Foxy and I have been less visible on the forum for the last couple of weeks because we've been busy in the background trying to ensure that we can bring more opportunities to you all. Hopefully within the next week or two, we'll be fully up and running with regards to gathering input and questions from fans and we'll start to see some results (and some on the pitch would be nice too!)
Cheers chaps!
Saturday’s game against Burnley marked the start of Kick It Out’s “One Game One
Community” weeks of action and to reinforce the message that Sheffield United welcomes football fans from all areas of Sheffield society and beyond, there were some very special visitors to Bramall Lane. Building on already strong links with the Chinese business world, Sheffield United, along with the City Council and both Sheffield Universities are supporting the Sheffield Chinese Entrepreneurs and Professionals Association (SCEPA) which aims to help Chinese students and business people integrate into Sheffield life as well as celebrating and promoting Chinese culture here in the UK.
As part of this, over 150 Chinese students were invited to Bramall Lane as guests of SCEPA and Sheffield United and to show that this is a club with roots very much in Sheffield, representatives from the Blades Independent Fans Forum (BIFF) were invited to become involved as ambassadors of the club to add to their experience. We assisted with the tours around the ground as well as answering the students’ many questions about our experiences of English football. Many were already aware of the club through our links in Chengdu and helped United celebrate Chengdu’s promotion back into the Chinese Super League.
Despite being vastly outnumbered and it being a complete change to our normal match day rituals (which usually involve being in the pub, not in our “smart-casual” wear!) the tours went without a hitch and eventually, all the students were escorted into the upper tier and seemed delighted by the six goals they witnessed. I may be biased, but their standing ovation seems to indicate that they particularly enjoyed our third!
We’d like to thank the club for the opportunity to get involved and we hope that the Chinese guests left with a positive impression of our friendly, family club.
Who are B.I.F.F.?
The Blades Independent Fans Forum was formed in August 2009 following a mixed fan experience during the Blades pre season tour to Hungary. The group's founder and Chairman Stuart Drew commented:
“Instead of venting my spleen, which seems the most popular way on the many football websites, Football Heaven etc., I decided to pose the question to Kevin McCabe during his first question and answer session held at SUFC in August 2009.
The question was: 'What was his perception of fan customer service following United away and especially abroad?'
His response was hopefully a good one where the fans felt there was always a Blades official (especially abroad) on hand to assist and resolve any issues. When I stated that in our case, this was not what we experienced, Kevin immediately promised to rectify this and after my question sent one of his Directors over to discuss further.
We had several more discussions and it became clear that the link between United and the fans maybe wasn’t as strong as was first thought.
With this in mind, I was asked if I could rectify this by forming a Fans Forum, I took up the challenge and pulled together a group of Blades from all walks of life who would be able to present to United Operations teams on a regular basis issues experienced by fans when following or dealing with United, whether it be a ticketing issue, catering, commercial or superstore. This is conducted in a structured and professional manner with minutes taken and agreed actions written. We do not cover on field or playing issues but everything else.
Going forward, I would like to reach a wider audience which is where S24SU.com comes in. Linz & Foxy have recently joined the Fans Forum and have expressed an interest in relaying certain key information from the meetings with United via this forum and this will be good for two reasons.
1) To enable members of S24SU.com to benefit from viewing dialogue between United and BIFF which may concern them as fans and
2) To enable members to inform us of any issues they may have we can take up with United on their behalf.
I welcome your thoughts, good or bad and hopefully BIFF and S24SU.com together, we can represent a larger proportion of our fan base and have a positive impact on the fan experience following United which we all know at times can involve more lows than highs!
Thanks, Stuart
Message from Linz & Foxy
Just to add a little to what Stuart's said. Quite often, we've read of fans' frustrations about a lack of clarity on certain issues coming out of the club. We've worked hard, in our unofficial capacity, to try and keep as many fans as possible in the loop with the information coming out of the club by publicising events such as the Q&A sessions and filling in the gaps the club, for some reason, seemed reluctant to fill.
This put our heads above the parapet, as it were, and brought you lot as forum members and us into the spotlight. We've always encouraged reasoned debate on here and it's paid dividends with regards to our reputation as a whole and we must thank you all for the that because, as a site, it now means that we all now have the opportunity to put our points forward and have them listened to in perhaps a clearer channel of communication than was available before as well as receive more insight into the club. You may have seen that Foxy was able to go to the press conference when Gary Speed was announced as manager. We hope that was just the start.
I just want to reassure all our members that we wear our badge as an "independent" forum with pride which means as far as the running of this place is concerned, it's business as usual. We don't have to look too far to see what disasters can happen when club officials start meddling with internet forums!
Nor do Foxy and I claim to speak for any of you. Every fan has a different opinion about certain aspects. However, as we do with the forum, we can provide a means to get the questions out there but unlike the forum, you just might receive a sensible answer
There may be a few new features and sections added to the forum make it easier for fans who perhaps aren't members to contact us and BIFF with their comments and also a return of the news sections so that everything is easy to find.
I hope this explains a little of why Foxy and I have been less visible on the forum for the last couple of weeks because we've been busy in the background trying to ensure that we can bring more opportunities to you all. Hopefully within the next week or two, we'll be fully up and running with regards to gathering input and questions from fans and we'll start to see some results (and some on the pitch would be nice too!)
Cheers chaps!